Calculus 3 : Applications of Partial Derivatives

Study concepts, example questions & explanations for Calculus 3

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Example Questions

Example Question #1645 : Calculus 3

Find the gradient vector of the following function:

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The gradient vector of a function is given by

To find the given partial derivative of the function, we must treat the other variable(s) as constants.

The partial derivatives are

 

Example Question #1646 : Calculus 3

Find the equation of the plane tangent to the following function at :

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The equation of the tangent plane is given by

So, we must find the partial derivatives for the function evaluated at the point given. To find the given partial derivative of the function, we must treat the other variable(s) as constants.

The partial derivatives are

Evaluated at the given point, the partial derivatives are

Plugging this into our equation, we get

which simplified becomes

Example Question #1647 : Calculus 3

Find the gradient vector of the following function:

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The gradient vector of a function is given by

To find the given partial derivative of the function, we must treat the other variable(s) as constants.

The partial derivatives are

Example Question #111 : Applications Of Partial Derivatives

Find the equation of the tangent plane at the point  to the surface

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The equation of the surface given in the problem is the level surface (with ) of the function . Hence, we can apply the definition of the tangent plane to a level surface to calculate the plane passing through the point  at an orthogonal direction (that is, perpendicularly) to the point's normal vector.

Recall this definition of the tangent plane to a level surface :

We have  and the point . Calculating the partial derivatives of  as well as the values of each of these derivatives at  yields the following information:

,

,

,

,

,

.

Therefore, the aforementioned definition of the tangent plane gives the equation for the tangent plane of  at  as

Example Question #1648 : Calculus 3

Find the equation of the tangent plane to the following function at :

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The equation of the tangent plane is given by

So, we must find the partial derivatives for the function evaluated at the point given. To find the given partial derivative of the function, we must treat the other variable(s) as constants.

The partial derivatives are

The partial derivatives evaluated at the given point are

Plugging this into the equation above, we get

which simplifies to

Example Question #91 : Gradient Vector, Tangent Planes, And Normal Lines

Find the gradient vector of the function:

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The gradient vector is given by

To find the given partial derivative of the function, we must treat the other variable(s) as constants.

The partial derivatives are

Example Question #91 : Gradient Vector, Tangent Planes, And Normal Lines

Find the gradient vector for the following function:

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The gradient vector of the function is given by

To find the given partial derivative of the function, we must treat the other variable(s) as constants.

The partial derivatives are

Example Question #92 : Gradient Vector, Tangent Planes, And Normal Lines

Find the gradient vector for the following function:

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The gradient vector of the function is given by

To find the given partial derivative of the function, we must treat the other variable(s) as constants.

The partial derivatives are

Example Question #1652 : Calculus 3

Write the equation of the tangent plane to the following function at :

Possible Answers:

Correct answer:

Explanation:

The equation of the tangent plane is given by

So, we must find the partial derivatives for the function evaluated at the point given. To find the given partial derivative of the function, we must treat the other variable(s) as constants.

The partial derivatives are

The partial derivatives evaluated at the given point

Plugging our known information into the equation above, we get

which simplifies to

Example Question #94 : Gradient Vector, Tangent Planes, And Normal Lines

Find the function with the gradient:

 that satisfies the condition 

 

Possible Answers:

 

Correct answer:

Explanation:

One easy solution is to just compute the gradients of each of the multiple choices for this problem and then apply the given condition . If your exam is not multiple choice, you will have to use a more insightful approach. Compare the given gradient to the general definition of a gradient: 

 

                                                     (1)

Since we obtain the gradient by computing the partial derivatives of each independent variable, we can obtain the function by integrating each component and then combining the results to write a single expression for 

 

 

 

Looking at the results, note that each we obtained may include either some of the terms or all of the terms of the functions actual function. In this case, integrating the  component gave back all the terms of

So our function will have the form:

 

Apply the condition 

Therefore the function we were looking for has the form: 

 

 

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